I recently posted about making more effort to take a camera with me on local trips, and, to actually stop and get out and take some photos. Well it looks like this is the start of a series of local photos posts because I have actually been out shooting in my area. Here is a series of photos of an old farm shed which is gradually returning to the earth and being overrun by the trees.
The old shed is shrouded in a curtain of deciduous trees, this was mid September, right at the end of winter before all the leaves came out so you could see the shed still. When I drive past now, the leaves completely hide it.
These photos are taken with Ilford HP5 Plus and I am liking this film. I have recently been shooting Ilford for black and white film purely on a cost basis. It is a bit different from Tmax 400, a bit more grain but also a bit less contrast. I am camera scanning these and I need to make a bigger adjustment in the shadows than I am used to. There is plenty of info in the shadows though.
A little insight into my process, if you can call it that. I have started the post with my favourite shot of the series. Flick through the blog, I usually do that. When I'm taking the photos, I have a walk around to see what is interesting, then try to get shots from a few angles. The three photos above are from the end of the shed with the stock loading ramp. Once I develop the film the whole roll gets scanned and converted to a positive so that I can have a cull of the shots. I'm not expecting to get 36 great shots every roll. With a subject like this, I am hoping to get two or three shots which tell a bit of a story of the place. I like the third shot from this group. If I was doing a proper cull, you would be seeing just the third image of this group.
Here is another example.
Here are two angles on this group of trees growing into the fence. I prefer the second shot so that would be the one that makes the cut. I like seeing more of the gate, the shed is pretty plain too so I like seeing just the suggestion of another shed through the trees rather than the plain corrugated iron front.
And a final example in the spirit of full disclosure. Here is the alternate angle of the first shot. Scroll back up to the top to compare.
This was a harder decision. I ended up preferring to see just a little bit more of the scene, a little bit more of the fence line, a little bit more of the big old oak tree and all that it has seen.
So here are my selects next to each other from this little spot down a road somewhere.
That's it for now. I have just processed four films though so I will be back with more thoughts and photos soon.
